JazzletterP.O. BOX 24-0Ojai, Calif.93023

JUNE? l5, I982 V01. I, NO. ll

NHYHCS, NHIUCS, NHYHGSAs the Jazzlener approaches the end ofits first year, lthought youmight like to know who we all are. This is the list of subscribers,who made it possible:

Mike Abene, Sharon Aday, Gene Aitken (Director of JazzStudies, University of North Colorado School of Music), Asa B.Allen, Steve Allen, Morgan Ames, Lloyd O. Anderson (Directorof Admissions and Community Services, Bismarck JuniorCollege), Wayne Andre, Ron Anton (BMI), Ted Arenson, lrvinArthur, Kenny Ascher,(‘arty Babasin, Bob Bain, Bill Ballentine (vice president,

L, .-M Toronto), Whitney Balliett (The New Yorker), JuliusBanas, Charlie Barnet, Charles Baron, Shirley J . Beaty, Judy Bell,Malcom Bell Jr., Mr. and Mrs. (Gail McFarland) Mike Benedict,Candace Bennett, David Berger, Jay Berliner, Bill Berry, GeneBertoncini, W - ' nell, Fred Binkley, David Bird (CBCWinnipeg), Prof. R.L. Blackmore (Dean ofAdmissions, ‘- ;- mversity),Charles E. Bloomquist, DavidJ. Bondelevitch, Harry Boon (program manager, CJAZ-FM,Vancouver, Canada), Trace Borst, Mark C. Brennan, Clifford S.Briggin MD, Bernard Brightman (Stash Records), Carol Britto,Bob Brookmeyer, Peter M. Brooks, C. Robert Brown, Jim andMary Brown (Jazzizz Records), H.M. Bryant, George H. Buck Jr.(Jazzology and Audiophile Records), Nico Bunink, LarryBunker, Allan Burns, Mary Butterill (CAPAC), Norman D.Byron,

R.K. Caldwell, Gigi Campi, Canadian Stage Band Festival,John Caper J r., Dave Caplan, Frank Capp, John Carisi, Ian Carr,Benny Carter, Oscar Castro-Neves, CBC Reference Library(Toronto), Edward C. Cerny, Jules Chaikin, John K. Chance(Department of Anthropolo 'versity of Denver), Emile(Hap, Ray Charles on Chastain, L. Blake(;.__» ey, Pete Christlieb, . . aitor, I|la§g Homer D.Clark (KBOO-FM, Portland, Oregon), teve over, Robert P.Cohen, Al Cohn, Bob Colby, Charles T. Cole, Joseph ColizoliMD, Howard Colson (BMI), James B. Conkling, Bob Connolly,Willis Conover (Voice of America), Torn Coogle, Willian L.Cook, Cooper Records, Albert Copland, Harold Coralnick MD,Owen Cordle (Raleigh N.C. News and Observer, Down Bea1etc.),Ed Corekin, Dale l. Corning, Jack Cortner, Sonny Costanzo,John Coulson (CBC-TV music, Toronto), Ralph Craig, GlendaE. Crawford, Steven M. Cristol, J. Bryan Cumming,

Meredith d'Ambrosio, George E. Danforth, James Datillo,Daybreak Express Records, Buddy DeFranco, BlairDeieremann, Fred DeLand, Leo de Lyon, Delmark Records,Clement deRosa, Vince deRosa, Manuel de Sica, JosephDiBenedetto, Gene diNovi, Robert C. Dinwiddle (archivist,Georgia State University), Chuck Domanico, ArthurDomaschenz, William Donoghue, Bob Dorough, Len Dresslar,Kenny Drew, Marilyn Dunlap, Stan Dunn (KJAZ, SanFrancisco),

Wendell Echols, Rachel Elkind, Don Elliott, Jack Elliott, HerbEllis, Ralph Enriquez, Gil Evans, Marion Evans, Tom Everett(Harvard University music school), B.G. Falk, Robert Farnon,Leonard Feather (the Los Angeles Times etc.), Victor Feldman,Allyn Ferguson, Don Ferrara, Clare Fischer, Richard Flohill(Canadian Composer magazine), Bill Fogarty, Chuck Folds,Frank Fox, Robert Frank, Don Freeman (San Diego Union

syndicated columnist), Stan Freeman, Richard Freniere, JamesN. Friedman, Ernie Furtado,

Russell George, Terry Gibbs, David A. Gilmore, JerryGladstone (Los Angeles Pierce College), Ken Glancy (FinesseRecords), Gerry Glantz MD, Howard E. Glazier, RobertGoerner, Ephraim Goldberg, Will:':i ;:iman, Mort Goode,Allen Goodman, Bill Goodwin Bob Gordo Mike and NitaGould, William A. Gracie MD, 1 . Greer Jr., RalphGrierson, Paul Grosney, Dick Grove Music Worskhops, PaulGuerrero Jr. (Richland College),

Robert Haber, Ami Hadani (TTG Studio), Charles M. Hall,Fred Hall (KOVA etc.), Dr. Gene Hall (Stephen F. Austin StateUniversity music school), Thomas M. Hampson, Mary 1.Hanzlick, The Happy Jazz Band (San Antonio, Texas), RichardC. Harpham, Eddie Harris, Roger W. Harris, Lynette Hart, DonHartford (president, CFRB, Toronto), James F. Hartley, AlanHarvey, Lester G. Hawkins, Mrs. Sophie Haynes (AmericanArtists Management), Eddie Hazell, Alan Helfman, LutherHenderson, Bonnie Herman, Mathias C. Hermann, Bob Hester,Dale Hibler, Patrick Hollenbeck (New England Conservatory ofMusic), Bill Holman, Andrew Homzy (Loyola Campus,Concordia University), Elliot Horne (RCA Records), MurrayHorwitz, Dougal W. House, John J. Hughes, Dick Hyman,

Jon A. Jackson, Jane Jarvis, Carl Jefferson (Concord JazzRecords), Larry Jeffrey, Gordon Jenkins, Peter D. Johnson, BobJones, Thad Jones,

Paul Karbel, Mr. and Mrs. Bill Kasimoff(Kasimoff-BluthnerPiano Company, Los Angeles), Roger Kellaway, Theron Kelley.Gene Kelly, James Kernan Sr., Maurie Kessler, Earl L. Kirkman,Alan Kishbaugh, Shirley L. Klett, Eric Kloss, Zane Knauss,Howard Kopet, Mrs. Catharine Koulouvaris, Jackie and RoyKral,

Julius LaRosa, Bill Larkin, Dick Latham, Elliott Lauterstein,Everette Lawler, Leon Leavitt, David Lees, Gary LeFebvre,

Shelley Manne‘s definition of jaazz “We neverplay anything the same way once.

Linda R. Lehmann, Mickey Leonard, Frank Leone, L.M.Letofsky, Peter Levinson, Bobby Lewis, John Lewis, Barry LittleMD, David S. Logan, Joe Lopes, Mundell Lowe, John (Jax)Lucas, A.J. Lukas, Bruce Lundvall (Elektra-Asylum Records),Dennis A. Lynch, Art Lyons, Jimmy Lyons (Monterey JazzFestival),

John G. Macbeod, Dave Maeliay, Mike Maher, AdamMakowicz, Harold Mailer MD, Bob Maloney, Junior Mance,Henry Mancini, Johnny Mandel, Roberta Mandel, ShellyManne, Dick Marx, Paul Maslansky, Joe Massimino, DanMather, E.R. McCandless, Rob McConnell, T.C. McConn0n,Warren L. McDonald, Loonis McGlohon, Greg Mcintosh, LaddMclntosh, Marian McPartland, Ginger Mercer, Ken Metz, LarryM. Miller, Gordon Mitchell, J.R. Mitchell, Carl Miyagishima,George M‘Le]y, Steven H. Moffic MD, Lois K. Moody, W.Steven Moore, George Morgan, Henry Morgan, DanMorgenstern (Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University),Chris Morrison, Joe Moylan, Gerry Mulligan, Lyn Murray,

Dick Nash, National Public Radio, Peter Newman (editor,MacJ'ean’s magazine), Chuck Niles (KKGO Los Angeles), Duke

Copyright 1982 by Gene Leos

JazzletterP.O. BOX 24-0Ojai, Calif.93023

JUNE? I5, I982 \/Ol. I, NO. ll

Names, NHIUCS, NHYHGSAs the Jazzletter approaches the end ofits first year, Ithought youmight like to know who we all are. This is the list of subscribers,who made it possible:

Mike Abene, Sharon Aday, Gene Aitken (Director of JazzStudies, University of North Colorado School of Music), Asa B.Allen, Steve Allen, Morgan Ames, Lloyd O. Anderson (Directorof Admissions and Community Services, Bismarck JuniorCollege), Wayne Andre, Ron Anton (BMI), Ted Arenson, lrvinArthur, Kenny Ascher,(‘arty Babasin, Bob Bain, Bill Ballentine (vice president,

L. .-M Toronto), Whitney Balliett (The New Yorker), JuliusBanas, Charlie Barnet, Charles Baron, Shirley J . Bcaty, Judy Bell,Malcom Bell Jr., Mr. and Mrs. (Gail McFarland) Mike Benedict,Candace Bennett, David Berger, Jay Berliner, Bill Berry, GeneBertoncini, W - ' nell, Fred Binkley, David Bird (CBCwlnnlpcg), Prof. R.L. Blackmore (Dean ofAdmissions, ‘- ;- mversity),Charles E. Bloomquist, DavidJ. Bondelevitch, Harry Boon (program manager, CJAZ-FM,Vancouver, Canada), Trace Borst, Mark C. Brennan, Clifford S.Briggin MD, Bernard Brightman (Stash Records), Carol Britto,Bob Brookmeyer, Peter M. Brooks, C. Robert Brown, Jim andMary Brown (Jazzizz Records), H.M. Bryant, George H. Buck Jr.(Jazzology and Audiophile Records), Nico Bunink, LarryBunker, Allan Burns, Mary Butterill (CAPAC), Norman D.Byron,

R.K. Caldwell, Gigi Campi, Canadian Stage Band Festival,John Caper J r., Dave Caplan, Frank Capp, John Carisi, Ian Carr,Benny Carter, Oscar Castro-Neves, CBC Reference Library(Toronto), Edward C. Cerny, Jules Chaikin, John K. Chance(Department of Anthropolo 'versity of Denver), Emile(Hap, Ray Charles on Chastain, L. Blake(;.__» ey, Pete Christlieb, . . aitor, C|lar]g Homer D.Clark (KBOO-FM, Portland, Oregon), teve over, Robert P.Cohen, Al Cohn, Bob Colby, Charles T. Cole, Joseph ColizoliMD, Howard Colson (BMI), James B. Conkling, Bob Connolly,Willis Conover (Voice of America), Torn Coogle, Willian L.Cook, Cooper Records, Albert Copland, Harold Coralnick MD,Owen Cordle (Raleigh N.C. News and Observer, Down Beat etc.),Ed Corekin, Dale l. Corning, Jack Cortner, Sonny Costanzo,John Coulson (CBC-TV music, Toronto), Ralph Craig, GlendaE. Crawford, Steven M. Cristol, J. Bryan Cumming,

Meredith d'Ambrosio, George E. Danforth, James Datillo,Daybreak Express Records, Buddy DeFranco, BlairDeieremann, Fred DeLand, Leo dc Lyon, Delmark Records,Clement deRosa, Vince deRosa, Manuel dc Sica, JosephDiBenedetto, Gene diNovi, Robert C. Dinwiddle (archivist,Georgia State University), Chuck Domanico, ArthurDomaschenz, William Donoghue, Bob Dorough, Len Dresslar,Kenny Drew, Marilyn Dunlap, Stan Dunn (KJAZ, SanFrancisco),

Wendell Echols, Rachel Elkind, Don Elliott, Jack Elliott, HerbEllis, Ralph Enriquez, Gil Evans, Marion Evans, Tom Everett(Harvard University music school), B.G. Falk, Robert Farnon,Leonard Feather (the Los Angeles Times etc.), Victor Feldman,Allyn Ferguson, Don Ferrara, Clare Fischer, Richard Flohill(Canadian Composer magazine), Bill Fogarty, Chuck Folds,Frank Fox, Robert Frank, Don Freeman (San Diego Union

syndicated columnist), Stan Freeman, Richard Freniere, JamesN. Friedman, Ernie Furtado,

Russell George, Terry Gibbs, David A. Gilmore, JerryGladstone (Los Angeles Pierce College), Ken Glancy (FinesseRecords), Gerry Glantz MD, Howard E. Glazier, RobertGoerncr, Ephraim Goldberg, Wil):':i ;:iman, Mort Goode,Allen Goodman, Bill Goodwin Bob Gordo Mike and NitaGould, William A. Gracie MD, 1 . Greer Jr., RalphGrierson, Paul Grosney, Dick Grove Music Worskhops, PaulGuerrero Jr. (Richland College),

Robert Haber, Ami Hadani (TTG Studio), Charles M. Hall,Fred Hall (KOVA ctc.), Dr. Gene Hall (Stephen F. Austin StateUniversity music school), Thomas M. Hampson, Mary l.i-lanzlick, The Happy Jazz Band (San Antonio, Texas), RichardC. I-larpham, Eddie Harris, Roger W. Harris, Lynette Hart, DonHartford (president, CFRB, Toronto), James F. Hartley, AlanHarvey, Lester G. Hawkins, Mrs. Sophie Haynes (AmericanArtists Management), Eddie Hazell, Alan Hclfman, LutherHenderson, Bonnie Herman, Mathias C. Hermann, Bob Hester,Dale Hibler, Patrick I-Iollenbeck (New England Conservatory ofMusic), Bill Holman, Andrew Homzy (Loyola Campus,Concordia University), Elliot Horne (RCA Records), MurrayHorwitz, Dougal W. House, John J. Hughes, Dick Hyman,

Jon A. Jackson, Jane Jarvis, Carl Jefferson (Concord JazzRecords), Larry Jeffrey, Gordon Jenkins, Peter D. Johnson, BobJones, Thad Jones,

Paul Karbel, Mr. and Mrs. Bill Kasimoff(Kasimoff-BluthnerPiano Company, Los Angeles), Roger Kellaway, Theron Kelley.Gene Kelly, James Kernan Sr., Maurie Kessler, Earl L. Kirkman,Alan Kishbaugh, Shirley L. Klett, Eric Kloss, Zane Knauss,Howard Kopet, Mrs. Catharine Koulouvaris, Jackie and RoyKral,

Julius LaRosa, Bill Larkin, Dick Latham, Elliott Lauterstein,Everette Lawler, Leon Leavitt, David Lees, Gary LeFebvre,

Shelley Manne‘s definition of jazz: “W6 neverplay anything the same way onto.

Linda R. Lehmann, Mickey Leonard, Frank Leone, L.M.Letofsky, Peter Levinson, Bobby Lewis, John Lewis, Barry LittleMD, David S. Logan, Joe Lopes, Mundell Lowe, John (Jax)Lucas, A.J. Lukas, Bruce Lundvall (Elektra-Asylum Records),Dennis A. Lynch, Art Lyons, Jimmy Lyons (Monterey JazzFestival),

John G. Macbeod, Dave Macliay, Mike Maher, AdamMakowicz, Harold Mailer MD, Bob Maloney, Junior Mance,Henry Mancini, Johnny Mandel, Roberta Mandel, ShellyManne, Dick Marx, Paul Maslansky, Joe Massimino, DanMather, E.R. McCandless, Rob McConnell, T.C. McConn0n,Warren L. McDonald, Loonis McGlohon, Greg Mcintosh, LaddMclntosh, Marian McPartland, Ginger Mercer, Ken Metz, LarryM. Miller, Gordon Mitchell, .l.R. Mitchell, Carl Miyagishima,George M‘Lely, Steven H. Moffic MD, Lois K. Moody, W.Steven Moore, George Morgan, Henry Morgan, DanMorgenstern (Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University),Chris Morrison, Joe Moylan, Gerry Mulligan, Lyn Murray,

Dick Nash, National Public Radio, Peter Newman (editor,Maeieatfs magazine), Chuck Niles (KKGO Los Angeles), Duke

Copyright 1982 by Gene Leos

Niles, Claude Nobs (Montreux Jazz Festival), Gene Norman(Crescendo Records), Rodney North,

Dale Oehler, Claus Ogerman, Ruth Olay, Omnisound lnc., TedO‘Reilly (CJRT-FM Toronto), William Orenstein,

Beatrice Page, Michael W. Paine, Chan Parker, Michael Parks,J. & R. Patterson, Lamont Patterson, Bruce Penticoff, NickPerito, Harvey Phillips (University of Indiana music school),Mallory Pierce, Sy Platt (Media and Performing Arts, BucksCounty Community College), Henry Pleasants (internationalHera1d~Tribune), Arrigo Polillo, Al Porcino, Bill Potts, Mrs.Arden Powell, Frank Powers, Willard Pratt, Jerry Printz, GenePuerling,

Bernie Rabinowitz, Vi Redd, John R. Reed, John Reeves,David R. Rehmeyer, Michael Renzi, Capt. Robert Resny, AlvinoRey, John M. Reynolds, Bob Richardson (Music Department,Auburn University), Jerome Richardson, Mike Richmond,Katharine Rogers, Terry R. Rogers MD, Bobby Rosengarden,Ric Ross, Ann Johns Ruckert, Norbert Ruecker (Jazz Index),Howard Rumsey,

Grover Sales, Bill Salter, Louis P. Schechter, Lalo Schifrin,J.W. Schooley, Tom Scott, Richard E. Schweitzer MD, PaulSeay, Robert B. Semple, Mike Serpas, Bud Shank, Nat Shapiro,Ed Shaughnessy, Artie Shaw, Peter Shaw (CBC Ottawa), DonShelton, Bobby Shew, Sahib Shihab, Ben Sidran, Kirk Silsbee,Zoot Sims, Dan Singer (BMI), Josef Skvorecky (University ofToronto), Bob Smith (CBC Vancouver), Earl Smith, Ann Sneed(International Art of Jazz), Elmer C. Sorenson, Paul Spurgeon(CAPAC), Virginia M. Steams, Lynford Stewart, Corky HaleStoller, Alden R. Stone, Peter Straub, Gus Statiras (ProgressiveRecords), Stan Sulzman,

Frank M. Tack, Thomas Taksa, Jimmy Taylor, Clark Terry,Charles Therminy, Robert Thiele, Edmund Thigpen, Horace H.Thoman DDS, Will Thornbury (KCRW Santa Monica), Dr.Frank Tirro (Dean, Yale University School of Music), RossTompkins, Karyl Friedhofer Tonge, Cy Touff, Bill Traut (HeadFirst Records), Oscar Treadwell (WGUC Cincinnati), John A.Tynan,

William L. Utter (general manager, WMUB, Oxford, Ohio),Art Van Damme,Katherine Waggener, Ann Waldburger, Bob Waldburger, Dr.

Alfred M. Wallbank (medical microbiology, University ofManitoba), Tom Walls, John R. Walsh (news editor, ScienceNews), Alan Watts, Jeffrey Weber, George Wein (FestivalProductions lnc.), Sam Weiss, Joel West MD, Paul Weston,Kenny Wheeler, Randy White, Jack Whittemore, Larry Wilcox,Floyd Williams (Department ofJazz Studies, Allegheny College),Patrick Williams, Ron L. Williams, Ted Williams, John S. Wilson(the New York Times, High Fidelity, etc.), Jimmy Wisner, HenryWolking, Dr. Herb Wong (KJAZ San Francisco, etc.), CharlesWood, Phil Woods,

Betty Zanoni, Michael Zwerin (lntemational Hera1d- Tribune).

YGGT 0116incredibly, the Jazzlener is a year old with the next issue. This hasbeen accomplished at a loss of less than $3,000, which isastonishing.

The figures are as follows:lt costs just under $500 to print each issue. This works out to

$l.2S per person per issue, plus of course 20 cents postage—60cents for overseas. Bulk mail merely cuts the cost in half and ishopelessly slow. Eight pages is the maximum practical size atpresent, since at that size the Jazzlener sneaks through the mail atalmost exactly an ounce. Eight pages, without pictures oradvertising, contain approximately half the wordage of an issue ofTime.

Since the printing cost of l,000 copies is not much more thanthat of 500, the Jazzlener will start paying for itself between l,000

and l,500 circulation. Several readers have said that it isunderpriced. Bill Fogarty, who is himself a magazine editor, said,“Almost ten percent of it goes instantly to postage." More,actually, because of the subsidiary correspondence. One readerurged that the price be doubled. But that would discouragereadership among young people and others we are all anxious toreach out and find. Clearly, some increase is necessary, but l wantto keep it to a minimum, and so the price forthe second year is $30in U.S. funds for the United States and Canada, $35 for othercountries.

l plan to use the money not to assure the second year‘sproduction costs. That would be the sane and sensible thing to dowith it. Instead I plan to seek out that lay audience without whichno art can exist. lf there is anything wrong with thatextraordinarily distinguished subscription list, it is that it tilts toomuch toward the profession.

A number of important lists—from jazz clubs, record labels,and music festivals—are available to me, and l want to beginmailings to them immediately. Therefore l hope you‘ll resubscribenow. A pre-addressed postage paid envelope is enclosed, exceptwith those copies going overseas or to Canada.

One of the most interesting phenomena of the Jazzleuefs " tyear has been the number of persons who have purchwlsubscriptions for others as gifts. lf any of you, in resubscribing,want additional subscriptions for others, let's price them at $20each.

l don‘t know what will become of the Jazzlener. Ultimately, itmay turn into a full-fledged magazine, which will have to acceptadvertising. This would permit me to publish the work of manyfine writers who at present have no appropriate outlet for theirwork. Or—as Owen Cordle, Mike Zwerin, Jack Tynan, BenSidran and l have been discussing—we may be able to start asecond publication directed more toward the layman, but withoutthat writing—down~to~the-boobs tone of so many magazines. lwant writers to be able to go flat-out, the way good jazz musiciansplay. l know how well some of these people write. But they rarelydo their best work for conventional publications, since every pieceof writing has to be put through the tea-strainer of some editor'smind, some editor who thinks he knows the level of the "public"mind. l happen to have a high opinion of the general intelligence,however it is defined, and l do not think the reader should besubjected to that veiled condescencion that is implicit in so manypublications. ‘J

Anyway, folks, it's resubscription time. And in the second year,we‘re really going to find our people and move closer to that co-operative distribution that has been one of the purposes of theJazzleuer since its inception.

lt's been an incredible year. Thank you.

From Africa with LoveContinuing from January.....

A few years ago Anthony Quinn made a film in South Africa, aninteresting picture that received negligible dlSH'lbUll0n. Since lsaw it on television and missed the first few minutes, l cannottellyou its name. Quinn plays a hospital orderly with a terminalillness who wants to leave money to his daughter when he dies.The president of a black African republic IS brought to thehospital for minor treatment. Quinn kidnaps him for ransom.

The Quinn character is an uneducated American. The blackman is cultivated. In the course of their flight and the sharedordeal of it, they slip reluctantly toward friendship. Finally theyare in a building atop a mountain, the upper terminus of a cablecar. Quinn, on the telephone, is discussing delivery of the ransomwhen he is overcome by pain. The president takes the telephoneand negotiates the terms of his own release; by now he wantsQuinn to have the money. And the captive has become the captor.

Then comes a scene that struck me forcefully. l cannot vouchthat this dialogue is verbatim, but the content is accurate:

Niles, Claude Nobs (Montreux Jazz Festival), Gene Norman(Crescendo Records), Rodney North,

Dale Oehler, Claus Ogerman, Ruth Olay, Omnisound lnc., TedO‘Rcilly (CJRT-FM Toronto), William Orenstein,

Beatrice Page, Michael W. Paine, Chan Parker, Michael Parks,J. & R. Patterson, Lamont Patterson, Bruce Penticoff, NickPerito, Harvey Phillips (University of lndiana music school),Mallory Pierce, Sy Platt (Media and Performing Arts, BucksCounty Community College), Henry Pleasants (internationalHera1d~Tri'bune), Arrigo Polillo, Al Porcino, Bill Potts, Mrs.Arden Powell, Frank Powers, Willard Pratt, Jerry Printz, GenePuerling,

Bernie Rabinowitz, Vi Redd, John R. Reed, John Reeves,David R. Rehmeyer, Michael Renzi, Capt. Robert Resny, AlvinoRey, John M. Reynolds, Bob Richardson (Music Department,Auburn University), Jerome Richardson, Mike Richmond,Katharine Rogers, Terry R. Rogers MD, Bobby Rosengarden,Ric Ross, Ann Johns Ruckert, Norbert Ruecker (Jazz Index),Howard Rumsey,

Grover Sales, Bill Salter, Louis P. Schechter, Lalo Schifrin,J.W. Schooley, Tom Scott, Richard E. Schweitzer MD, PaulSeay, Robert B. Semple, Mike Serpas, Bud Shank, Nat Shapiro,Ed Shaughnessy, Artie Shaw, Peter Shaw (CBC Ottawa), DonShelton, Bobby Shew, Sahib Shihab, Ben Sidran, Kirk Silsbee,Zoot Sims, Dan Singer (BMI), Josef Skvorecky (University ofToronto), Bob Smith (CBC Vancouver), Earl Smith, Ann Sneed(International Art of Jazz), Elmer C. Sorenson, Paul Spurgeon(CAPAC), Virginia M. Steams, Lynford Stewart, Corky HaleStoller, Alden R. Stone, Peter Straub, Gus Statiras (ProgressiveRecords), Stan Sulzman,

Frank M. Tack, Thomas Taksa, Jimmy Taylor, Clark Terry,Charles Therminy, Robert Thiele, Edmund Thigpen, Horace H.Thoman DDS, Will Thornbury (KCRW Santa Monica), Dr.Frank Tirro (Dean, Yale University School of Music), RossTompkins, Karyl Friedhofer Tonge, Cy Touff, Bill Traut (HeadFirst Records), Oscar Treadwell (WGUC Cincinnati), John A.Tynan,

William L. Utter (general manager, WMUB, Oxford, Ohio),Art Van Damme,Katherine Waggener, Ann Waldburger, Bob Waldburger, Dr.

Alfred M. Wallbank (medical microbiology, University ofManitoba), Tom Walls, John R. Walsh (news editor, ScienceNews), Alan Watts, Jeffrey Weber, George Wein (FestivalProductions lnc.), Sam Weiss, Joel West MD, Paul Weston,Kenny Wheeler, Randy White, Jack Whittemore, Larry Wilcox,Floyd Williams (Department ofJazz Studies, Allegheny College),Patrick Williams, Ron L. Williams, Ted Williams, John S. Wilson(the New York Times, High Fidelity, etc.), Jimmy Wisner, HenryWolking, Dr. Herb Wong (KJAZ San Francisco, etc.), CharlesWood, Phil Woods,

Betty Zanoni, Michael Zwerin (lntemational Hera1d- Tribune).

YGGT 0116Incredibly, the Jazzlener is a year old with the next issue. This hasbeen accomplished at a loss of less than $3,000, which isastonishing.

The figures are as follows:lt costs just under $500 to print each issue. This works out to

$l.2S per person per issue, plus of course 20 cents postage—60cents for overseas. Bulk mail merely cuts the cost in half and ishopelessly slow. Eight pages is the maximum practical size atpresent, since at that size the Jazzlener sneaks through the mail atalmost exactly an ounce. Eight pages, without pictures oradvertising, contain approximately half the wordage of an issue ofTime.

Since the printing cost of l,000 copies is not much more thanthat of 500, the Jazzlener will start paying for itself between l,000

and l,500 circulation. Several readers have said that it isunderpriced. Bill Fogarty, who is himself a magazine editor, said,“Almost ten percent of it goes instantly to postage." More,actually. because of the subsidiary correspondence. One readerurged that the price be doubled. But that would discouragereadership among young people and others we are all anxious toreach out and find. Clearly, some increase is necessary, but l wantto keep it to a minimum, and so the price forthe second year is $30in U.S. funds for the United States and Canada, $35 for othercountries.

l plan to use the money not to assure the second year‘sproduction costs. That would be the sane and sensible thing to dowith it. Instead I plan to seek out that lay audience without whichno art can exist. lf there is anything wrong with thatextraordinarily distinguished subscription list, it is that it tilts toomuch toward the profession.

A number of important lists—from jazz clubs, record labels,and music festivals—are available to me, and l want to beginmailings to them irnmediaiely. Therefore l hope you‘ll resubscribenow. A pre-addressed postage paid envelope is enclosed, exceptwith those copies going overseas or to Canada.

One of the most interesting phenomena of the JazzIeiier‘s " tyear has been the number of persons who have purchwlsubscriptions for others as gifts. lf any of you, in resubscribing,want additional subscriptions for others, let's price them at $20each.

l don‘t know what will become of the Jazzletter. Ultimately, itmay turn into a full-fledged magazine, which will have to acceptadvertising. This would permit me to publish the work of manyfine writers who at present have no appropriate outlet for theirwork. Or—as Owen Cordle, Mike Zwerin, Jack Tynan, BenSidran and l have been discussing—we may be able to start asecond publication directed more toward the layman, but withoutthat writing—down~to~the-boobs tone of so many magazines. lwant writers to be able to go flat-out, the way good jazz musiciansplay. l know how well some of these people write. But they rarelydo their best work for conventional publications, since every pieceof writing has to be put through the tea-strainer of some editor'smind, some editor who thinks he knows the level of the "public"mind. l happen to have a high opinion of the general intelligence,however it is defined, and l do not think the reader should besubjected to that veiled condescencion that is implicit in so manypublications. ‘J

Anyway, folks, it's resubscription time. And in the second year,we‘re really going to find our people and move closer to that co-operative distribution that has been one of the purposes of theJazzleuer since its inception.

lt's been an incredible year. Thank you.

From Africa with LoveContinuing from January.....

A few years ago Anthony Quinn made a film in South Africa, aninteresting picture that received negligible distribution. Since lsaw it on television and missed the first few minutes, l cannottellyou its name. Quinn plays a hospital orderly with a terminalillness who wants to leave money to his daughter when he dies.The president of a black African republic is brought to thehospital for minor treatment. Quinn kidnaps him for ransom.

The Quinn character is an uneducated American. The blackman is cultivated. In the course of their flight and the sharedordeal of it, they slip reluctantly toward friendship. Finally theyare in a building atop a mountain, the upper terminus of a cablecar. Quinn, on the telephone, is discussing delivery of the ransomwhen he is overcome by pain. The president takes the telephoneand negotiates the terms of his own release; by now he wantsQuinn to have the money. And the captive has become the captor.

Then comes a scene that struck me forcefully. l cannot vouchthat this dialogue is verbatim, but the content is accurate:

The president asks Quinn, “Tell me, do you think we blackpeople have. . .natural rhythm?“

Quinn laughs, shuffles, and says, “Don’t put me through that.I've had that test tried on me before.“ .

“Nevertheless,” the president says, “do you believe it?”“Well, I suppose I do."“And why do you think it is?”“I don‘t know. I guess it’s a matter of culture. You grow up with

all those rhythms, and the drums, and. . .““Wrong. Shall I tell you why‘? It is because Eastern civilization

is concerned with the past, Western civilization is concerned withthe future, and we are concerned with. . . Now!” And on “now” heclaps his hands and starts repeating rhythmically,“Now...now...now!” And he begins to dance, discarding hisOxonian dignity. He tells Quinn, “Join me! Now...now...now!”Quinn, awkwardly, tries to dance but the pain takes him again andhe slips to the floor. Both men end up sitting on the floor, laughingand breathless, their friendship now firmly forged.

Aside from its charm, the scene is memorable for its insight.Whoever wrote that script was aware of something important.

Western civilization is usually considered to originate with the€eks—Archimedes, Hippocrates, Galen, Heraclitus, Zeno, and

_ ve all Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Socrates is to Westernphilosophy what Buddy Bolden was to jazz, and it has been saidthat “all philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato.”

The achievements of that system of thought have beenastounding. Aristotle died 2,304 years ago, which is about 33lifetimes — little more than a yesterday in the life of this planet.But the conquests we have made using intellectual disciplinesderived from the Greeks—observation, classification, skepticismtoward evidence, syllogism, induction, deduction-—have been soprodigious that we now face the possibility and indeed theprobability that no young man or woman of our time will live tosee old age.

For all the achievements of this system of thought, almosteveryone entrapped in it senses that there is something wrong withit, something that produces a feeling of incompletion andalienation. We are separated, it seems, from the universe, doomedto wander alone, now and then catching a glimpse through acandy-store window of the bon-bons of reality. A moment of love,a transcendental musical experience. Burt Reynolds told me thatwhen he was gravely ill and had reason to believe he would soonQ he picked up a flower and held it in the palm of his hand. It

s a flower he had known all his life in Florida. But, he realizedthen, looking at its color and shape and startled by them, he hadnever really seen it before. Later on, he said, you try to recapturethe purity and clarity of vision of such an ecstatic moment, butyou never can. e

The image of exile haunts the world’s folklore, mostparticularly in our culture in the myth of Adam and Eve and theirexpulsion from the garden for having partaken of the fruit ofknowledge. A child finds this one of the most puzzling of allBiblical tales. Why is he being forced by parents and teachers to dowhat Adam and Eve were punished for doing?

But the story is one of the profound myths. We didn’t have towait for God’s lawyers to serve the eviction notice to begin ourexile. We were expelled from nature the moment we learned tospeak, to attach meanings to vocal noises, to make symbols ofsounds. Verbalization, whether audible or silent in the mind,enabled us to visit the past and describe it and wander inspeculation through the future. We escaped from now. And werarely find our way home to it again. We watch the ghostly futurerushing toward us and try to seize it out of the incorporeal air onlyto find that it has already become the past.

Actually, Adam had a problem before he ate the apple, whichwas merely a trap set by a God already out to get him. His firstmistake involved words. According to Genesis (the Oxfordtranslation), God “brought (the animals and birds) to the man to

see what he would call them, and whatever the man called eachliving creature, that was its name.” He was in trouble right there.Perceiving that he had a presumptuous tenant, God sent thesnake, the first functionary to practice entrapment, and thenannounced that the apples were not covered by the lease. We havebeen out here ever since, and it gets cold at times.

John I:l: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word waswith God, and the Word was God." Again there is the emphasis onthe importance of the word—the logos in Greek. In Genesis wefind the story of the tower of Babel (Babylon). Adam'sdescendants, apparently not having learned how petulant andarbitrary the landlord could be, decided to build a tower to hisabode, namely the heavens. For this impertinence he dispersedthem and made them speak different languages so that they werenow separated not only from nature but from each other.American slave-owners, who were nothing if not Bible-readers,applied the lesson of that story by mixing captives of differentlanguages so that they could not converse and therefore could notachieve the political cohesion necessary to co-ordinated rebellion.This caused Africans in America to forget their cultures andcustoms and function as best they could in English which,ironically, they continue to this day to use with remarkableinvention and poetry. Consciousness is a product of language. Butthe price we have paid for it is our separation from nature, theperpetual maddening flow of words through the mind, theunending observation of everything, including ourselves, thetalking about existence rather than the direct and vibrantexperience of it.

Julian Jaynes, the Princeton research psychologist who hascaused a stir with his book The Origins of Consciousness in theBreakdown of the Bicameral Mind, thinks that consciousness isassembled out of language—something I had always taken to beself-evident. What is new is that he thinks consciousness emergedno more than 3,000 years ago in Greece. (That ofcourse manifestsa cultural bias. We do not know how many civilizations rose andfell before that of Greece. Some scholars think the Vedas dateback more than 7,000 years.) But Jaynes is undoubtedly right inthinking that consciousness is a comparatively recentphenomenon. And the thought processes of Western civilizationdo indeed descend from the Greeks.

But the troubled intuition that words are central to our problemhas become widespread in recent years, dim and unexpressedthough it usually is. It is the cause of our seeking non-verbalexperience in drugs. It has given rise to any number of cults and toa fascination with philosophies from the Orient, including ZenBuddhism and transcendental meditation.

That extensive drug use and an interest in Oriental thought anddisciplines, such as yoga, occurred simultaneously is not acoincidence. They grow out of an apparently desperate need to get“outside” or “above” or “below” ‘our endless isolatingverbalization.

Alcohol came into use as a food preservative. Some prehistoricgenius discovered that if fruit juice is allowed to ferment, it can bekept into the winter and its nutritional content absorbed when it ismost needed. Soon thereafter, no doubt, some other prehistoricgenius discovered that if you drink enough of the stuff, life bothersyou a little less.

The advocates of marijuana who claim its use is no differentthan that of alcohol overlook something important. While thecautious and moderate use of alcohol, the preservative ofnutrients, was tolerated, getting loaded on it has always beenfrowned upon, and in certain circumstances is illegal. Among theGreeks, the drunken Bacchus was seen as a buffoon. So is Falstaff.So is Jack Norton, the top-hatted drunk who wanders ludicrouslythrough so many l930s movies.

So deep runs the disapproval of the drunken state that a body ofrationalization grew up around it and rarely would anyone admitin uncorking a jug that the purpose was to get bagged. And a man

The president asks Quinn, “Tell me, do you think we blackpeople have. . .natural rhythm?“

Quinn laughs, shuffles, and says, “Don’t put me through that.I've had that test tried on me before.“ I

“Nevertheless,” the president says, “do you believe it?”“Well, l suppose l do."“And why do you think it is?”“I don‘t know. I guess it’s a matter of culture. You grow up with

all those rhythms, and the drums, and. . .““Wrong. Shall I tell you why‘? It is because Eastern civilization

is concerned with the past, Western civilization is concerned withthe future, and we are concerned with. . . Now!” And on “now” heclaps his hands and starts repeating rhythmically,“Now...now...nowl” And he begins to dance, discarding hisOxonian dignity. He tells Quinn, “Join me! Now...now...now!”Quinn, awkwardly, tries to dance but the pain takes him again andhe slips to the floor. Both men end up sitting on the floor, laughingand breathless, their friendship now firmly forged.

Aside from its charm, the scene is memorable for its insight.Whoever wrote that script was aware of something important.

Western civilization is usually considered to originate with the€eks—Archimedes, Hippocrates, Galen, Heraclitus, Zeno, and

_ ve all Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Socrates is to Westernphilosophy what Buddy Bolden was to jazz, and it has been saidthat “all philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato.”

The achievements of that system of thought have beenastounding. Aristotle died 2,304 years ago, which is about 33lifetimes — little more than a yesterday in the life of this planet.But the conquests we have made using intellectual disciplinesderived from the Greeks—observation, classification, skepticismtoward evidence, syllogism, induction, deduction-—have been soprodigious that we now face the possibility and indeed theprobability that no young man or woman of our time will live tosee old age.

For all the achievements of this system of thought, almosteveryone entrapped in it senses that there is something wrong withit, something that produces a feeling of incompletion andalienation. We are separated, it seems, from the universe, doomedto wander alone, now and then catching a glimpse through acandy-store window of the bon-bons of reality. A moment of love,a transcendental musical experience. Burt Reynolds told me thatwhen he was gravely ill and had reason to believe he would soonQ he picked up a flower and held it in the palm of his hand. lt

s a flower he had known all his life in Florida. But, he realizedthen, looking at its color and shape and startled by them, he hadnever really seen it before. Later on, he said, you try to recapturethe purity and clarity of vision of such an ecstatic moment, butyou never can. s

The image of exile haunts the world’s folklore, mostparticularly in our culture in the myth of Adam and Eve and theirexpulsion from the garden for having partaken of the fruit ofknowledge. A child finds this one of the most puzzling of allBiblical tales. Why is he being forced by parents and teachers to dowhat Adam and Eve were punished for doing?

But the story is one of the profound myths. We didn’t have towait for God’s lawyers to serve the eviction notice to begin ourexile. We were expelled from nature the moment we learned tospeak, to attach meanings to vocal noises, to make symbols ofsounds. Verbalization, whether audible or silent in the mind,enabled us to visit the past and describe it and wander inspeculation through the future. We escaped from now. And werarely find our way home to it again. We watch the ghostly futurerushing toward us and try to seize it out of the incorporeal air onlyto find that it has already become the past.

Actually, Adam had a problem before he ate the apple, whichwas merely a trap set by a God already out to get him. His firstmistake involved words. According to Genesis (the Oxfordtranslation), God “brought (the animals and birds) to the man to

see what he would call them, and whatever the man called eachliving creature, that was its name.” He was in trouble right there.Perceiving that he had a presumptuous tenant, God sent thesnake, the first functionary to practice entrapment, and thenannounced that the apples were not covered by the lease. We havebeen out here ever since, and it gets cold at times.

John l:l: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word waswith God, and the Word was God." Again there is the emphasis onthe importance of the word—the logos in Greek. ln Genesis wefind the story of the tower of Babel (Babylon). Adam'sdescendants, apparently not having learned how petulant andarbitrary the landlord could be, decided to build a tower to hisabode, namely the heavens. For this impertinence he dispersedthem and made them speak different languages so that they werenow separated not only from nature but from each other.American slave-owners, who were nothing if not Bible-readers,applied the lesson of that story by mixing captives of differentlanguages so that they could not converse and therefore could notachieve the political cohesion necessary to co-ordinated rebellion.This caused Africans in America to forget their cultures andcustoms and function as best they could in English which,ironically, they continue to this day to use with remarkableinvention and poetry. Consciousness is a product of language. Butthe price we have paid for it is our separation from nature, theperpetual maddening flow of words through the mind, theunending observation of everything, including ourselves, thetalking about existence rather than the direct and vibrantexperience of it.

Julian Jaynes, the Princeton research psychologist who hascaused a stir with his book The Origins of Consciousness in theBreakdown of the Bicameral Mind, thinks that consciousness isassembled out of language—something I had always taken to beself-evident. What is new is that he thinks consciousness emergedno more than 3,000 years ago in Greece. (That ofcourse manifestsa cultural bias. We do not know how many civilizations rose andfell before that of Greece. Some scholars think the Ved_as dateback more than 7,000 years.) But Jaynes is undoubtedly right inthinking that consciousness is a comparatively recentphenomenon. And the thought processes of Western civilizationdo indeed descend from the Greeks.

But the troubled intuition that words are central to our problemhas become widespread in recent years, dim and unexpressedthough it usually is. It is the cause of our seeking non-verbalexperience in drugs. It has given rise to any number of cults and toa fascination with philosophies from the Orient, including ZenBuddhism and transcendental meditation.

That extensive drug use and an interest in Oriental thought anddisciplines, such as yoga, occurred simultaneously is not acoincidence. They grow out of an apparently desperate need to get“outside” or “above” or “below” ‘our endless isolatingverbalization.

Alcohol came into use as a food preservative. Some prehistoricgenius discovered that if fruit juice is allowed to ferment, it can bekept into the winter and its nutritional content absorbed when it ismost needed. Soon thereafter, no doubt, some other prehistoricgenius discovered that if you drink enough of the stuff, life bothersyou a little less.

The advocates of marijuana who claim its use is no differentthan that of alcohol overlook something important. While thecautious and moderate use of alcohol, the preservative ofnutrients, was tolerated, getting loaded on it has always beenfrowned upon, and in certain circumstances is illegal. Among theGreeks, the drunken Bacchus was seen as a buffoon. So is Falstaff.So is Jack Norton, the top-hatted drunk who wanders ludicrouslythrough so many l930s movies.

So deep runs the disapproval of the drunken state that a body ofrationalization grew up around it and rarely would anyone admitin uncorking a jug that the purpose was to get bagged. And a man

with a hangover would say that he‘d had “one too many“,implying that his condition was the consequence of meremiscalculation.

With the coming of widespread use of psychotropic chemicals,a drastic change in social attitude occurs. When one lights a jointor drops a pill, one does not pretend that the purpose of theexercise is to enhance affability or to enjoy the flavor of thesubstance. It is one’s premeditated and unconcealed intention toget zipped. The rationalization has been abandoned. This is new,at least in western society. (The Arabs of course had been doinghash for centuries, and American Indians had a veritablepharmacopoeia of mind-bending groceries.) The fascination withdrugs and Oriental philosophies indicated a growing if °/"W.’

4-

uncomprehended dissatisfaction with verbal linear thought, a jgsuspicion that there might be another way of experiencingexperience.

If the development of speech and thought-in-words expelled usfrom nature, the invention of writing increased the distance fromit. By now, in so-called civilized societies (which is to say thosethat are working feverishly for our obliteration), literacy iswidespread, and in some it is universal. As a consequence of thespread of literacy, everyone in Western society is the prisoner ofGreek reasoning. And few people understand the extent to whichthey are slaves of their own thought processes, which are in turnthe direct consequence of the tyranny of language.

As soon as one formulates an opinion, one tends to beenthralled by the logical structure one has erected in support of itand to protect it by the blinkered exclusion of any evidence thatchallenges it. One‘s very definition of the self involves anadherence to a complex of carefully-constructed verbaldefinitions. Therefore we do not readily accept information thatchallenges any of these definitions, since it threatens one’s imageof the self.

But verbal logic is treacherous. And it is the faint perception ofthis fact that has in recent years inspired a fascination with non-logical non-linear forms of perception. A

It is believed by many scholars that the poet Homer did notexist, that the [Iliad is a compilation of tales already extant in apre-literate culture. Oral culture persisted a little longer inAmerica and Africa than in Europe~——about six seconds longer, interms of geological time. It is extremely significant to Americanmusic that it did.

It is helpful to reflect for a moment on how recently the removalof Africans to America occurred. In 1983, the Constitution of theUnited States will be 200 years old. Eubie Blake will be I00. Andthe African culture was an oral culture. The very deprivation offormal literate education for blacks has had the effect of keeping aform of it alive well into our own time. C

An oral culture is inherently different from a literate one, sincespeech is a spontaneous and improvisational act. That there is avocal quality about jazz instrumental music has always beenrecognized. What has not been as widely recognized is thepsychological influence of an oral culture on the music.

When Ben Sidran, the songwriter and singer, is sitting at thepiano in a nightclub, doing his earthy and unassuming thing, fewpeople in the audience realize that he has a PhD in history andsociology and is a superb writer. Ben wrote a book called BlackTalk, first published in I971 and now published by Da Capo press.It is a book I cannot recommend too highly, one of the mostilluminating books about jazz that I have ever encountered.

“The elements of black music most responsible for the impact ithas are the vocalized tone and the peculiarly ‘black’ approach torhythm," Ben wrote. “These are essential elements of oralcommunication in general and allow for communication of anonverbal nature, often at an unconscious level, to triumph overthe rigid classification structure of any linguistic system and tocontinue in the face of cultural suppression. The vocalizedapproach is part of the greater oral ability to lend semantic

i1

significance to tonal elements of speech. Bornman has suggestedthat ‘while the whole European tradition strives for regularity—ofpitch, of time, of timbre, and of vibrato—the African traditionstrives precisely for the negation of these elements. In language,the African tradition aims at circumlocution rather than at exactdefinition. The direct statement is considered crude andunimaginative; the veiling of all content in ever-changingparaphrase is considered the criterion of intelligence andpersonality.“ If I may butt in, we see immediately why blackpeople and white people so often do not understand each other.

/. They are using language in different ways. “‘In music, the sameI tendency toward obliquity and ellipsis is noticeable: no note is

attacked straight; the voice or instrument always approaches itfrom above or below. The timbre is veiled and paraphrased byconstantly changing vibrato, tremolo, and overtone effects.

“The semantic value of tonal significance is thus carried overinto instrumental playing. . . .

“The black approach to rhythm, being a function of the greateroral approach to time, is more difficult to define in writing.Capturing the rhythms of African or modern Afro-Americanmusic with Western notation is a lot like trying to capture the sin a fishnet... . It is really not enough to say that rhythmic ten 'is sustained through the imposition of polyrhythms over a stateor implied meter. The complexity of this rhythmic approach is inlarge part due to the value placed on spontaneity and theinherently communal nature of oral improvisation. . ..

“The essential nature of communication through rhythm is anunknown quantity due, primarily, to lack of interest on the part ofWestem science.”

Don DeMicheal, being a drummer, used to muse on thisphenomenon even more than most of us, and on the difficulty ofdefining swing. Aside from the known polyrhythmic factors, Don

\ thought the phenomen of swinging was heightened if not achieved3 by a shifting back and forth around the center of the time. Allidrummers know that. But the impossibility of notating it oraccurately describing it so bugged Don that he wanted to feed the

J sound of a good drummer into a computer to see if it could give usa universally acceptable solution to the mystery. (That’s what hegot for studying sociology. And Sidran has the same problem.)

When Artie Shaw and I were discussing intonation recently, hesaid, “A tone has thickness.” And so it does. There is a point that islow on the tone, another in the center of the tone, and anot,high on the tone, which is how good lead trumpeters play and§way Oscar Peterson likes his piano tuned. If a tone has thickness, abeat has breadth. There’s the place that’s back of the beat, theplace in the center of it, and that which is a shade ahead of it—“on

If you ever get your guitar in tune, send it to meand I'll give you mine.

—Herb Ellis (192 1- )

top of the time”. Nat Cole, in both his singing and his playing,used to play wondrous little games with the time, doing so withutter security. The Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell made a recordin which his “rhythm section” consisted of a solitary metronome.By the way he placed his chords and notes around the drearymechanical tick of the metronome, he made the metronomeswing. It didn’t seem to swing. It did swing. Oscar Peterson pointsout that when you shift the beat on top of the time, you induce aphysical reaction on the audience: they begin popping theirthumbs or tapping their feet. He cannot of course explain thecomplex neural-glandular-muscular-emotional response that".produces the tapping. Neither can anybody else.

I asked Oscar, “But what happens in a trio, say, if all three ofyou go on top of the time? Haven’t you merely shifted the center ofthe beat and therefore none of you is on top of the time?”

“No,” Oscar said. “Y0u’re still on top of the time."This brings us to the edge of the mystical—the displacement of

with a hangover would say that he‘d had “one too many“,implying that his condition was the consequence of meremiscalculation.

With the coming of widespread use of psychotropic chemicals,a drastic change in social attitude occurs. When one lights a jointor drops a pill, one does not pretend that the purpose of theexercise is to enhance affability or to enjoy the flavor of thesubstance. It is one’s premeditated and unconcealed intention toget zipped. The rationalization has been abandoned. This is new,at least in western society. (The Arabs of course had been doinghash for centuries, and American Indians had a veritablepharmacopoeia of mind-bending groceries.) The fascination withdrugs and Oriental philosophies indicated a growing if °/"sit.’

4-

uncomprehended dissatisfaction with verbal linear thought, a jgsuspicion that there might be another way of experiencingexperience.

If the development of speech and thought-in-words expelled usfrom nature, the invention of writing increased the distance fromit. By now, in so-called civilized societies (which is to say thosethat are working feverishly for our obliteration), literacy iswidespread, and in some it is universal. As a consequence of thespread of literacy, everyone in Western society is the prisoner ofGreek reasoning. And few people understand the extent to whichthey are slaves of their own thought processes, which are in turnthe direct consequence of the tyranny of language.

As soon as one formulates an opinion, one tends to beenthralled by the logical structure one has erected in support of itand to protect it by the blinkered exclusion of any evidence thatchallenges it. One‘s very definition of the self involves anadherence to a complex of carefully-constructed verbaldefinitions. Therefore we do not readily accept information thatchallenges any of these definitions, since it threatens one’s imageof the self.

But verbal logic is treacherous. And it is the faint perception ofthis fact that has in recent years inspired a fascination with non-logical non-linear forms of perception. I

It is believed by many scholars that the poet Homer did notexist, that the [Iliad is a compilation of tales already extant in apre-literate culture. Oral culture persisted a little longer inAmerica and Africa than in Europe~——about six seconds longer, interms of geological time. It is extremely significant to Americanmusic that it did.

It is helpful to reflect for a moment on how recently the removalof Africans to America occurred. In 1983, the Constitution of theUnited States will be 200 years old. Eubie Blake will be 100. Andthe African culture was an oral culture. The very deprivation offormal literate education for blacks has had the effect of keeping aform of it alive well into our own time. F

An oral culture is inherpntly different from a literate one, sincespeech is a spontaneous and improvisational act. That there is avocal quality about jazz instrumental music has always beenrecognized. What has not been as widely recognized is thepsychological influence of an oral culture on the music.

When Ben Sidran, the songwriter and singer, is sitting at thepiano in a nightclub, doing his earthy and unassuming thing, fewpeople in the audience realize that he has a PhD in history andsociology and is a superb writer. Ben wrote a book called BlackTalk, first published in I971 and now published by Da Capo press.It is a book I cannot recommend too highly, one of the mostilluminating books about jazz that I have ever encountered.

“The elements of black music most responsible for the impact ithas are the vocalized tone and the peculiarly ‘black’ approach torhythm," Ben wrote. “These are essential elements of oralcommunication in general and allow for communication of anonverbal nature, often at an unconscious level, to triumph overthe rigid classification structure of any linguistic system and tocontinue in the face of cultural suppression. The vocalizedapproach is part of the greater oral ability to lend semantic

il

significance to tonal elements of speech. Bornman has suggestedthat ‘while the whole European tradition strives for regularity—ofpitch, of time, of timbre, and of vibrato—the African traditionstrives precisely for the negation of these elements. In language,the African tradition aims at circumlocution rather than at exactdefinition. The direct statement is considered crude andunimaginative; the veiling of all content in ever-changingparaphrase is considered the criterion of intelligence andpersonality.“ If I may butt in, we see immediately why blackpeople and white people so often do not understand each other.

7. They are using language in different ways. “‘In music, the samef tendency toward obliquity and ellipsis is noticeable: no note is

attacked straight; the voice or instrument always approaches itfrom above or below. The timbre is veiled and paraphrased byconstantly changing vibrato, tremolo, and overtone effects.

“The semantic value of tonal significance is thus carried overinto instrumental playing. . . .

“The black approach to rhythm, being a function of the greateroral approach to time, is more difficult to define in writing.Capturing the rhythms of African or modern Afro-Americanmusic with Western notation is a lot like trying to capture the sin a fishnet... . It is really not enough to say that rhythmic ten 'is sustained through the imposition of polyrhythms over a stateor implied meter. The complexity of this rhythmic approach is inlarge part due to the value placed on spontaneity and theinherently communal nature of oral improvisation. . ..

“The essential nature of communication through rhythm is anunknown quantity due, primarily, to lack of interest on the part ofWestem science.”

Don DeMicheal, being a drummer, used to muse on thisphenomenon even more than most of us, and on the difficulty ofdefining swing. Aside from the known polyrhythmic factors, Don

\ thought the phenomen of swinging was heightened if not achieved, by a shifting back and forth around the center of the time. Allidrummers know that. But the impossibility of notating it oraccurately describing it so bugged Don that he wanted to feed the

J sound of a good drummer into a computer to see if it could give usa universally acceptable solution to the mystery. (That’s what hegot for studying sociology. And Sidran has the same problem.)

When Artie Shaw and I were discussing intonation recently, hesaid, “A tone has thickness.” And so it does. There is a point that islow on the tone, another in the center of the tone, and anot,high on the tone, which is how good lead trumpeters play and§way Oscar Peterson likes his piano tuned. If a tone has thickness, abeat has breadth. There’s the place that’s back of the beat, theplace in the center of it, and that which is a shade ahead of it—“on

If you ever get your guitar in tune, send it to meand I'll give you mine.

—Herb Ellis (192 1- )

top of the time”. Nat Cole, in both his singing and his playing,used to play wondrous little games with the time, doing so withutter security. The Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell made a recordin which his “rhythm section” consisted of a solitary metronome.By the way he placed his chords and notes around the drearymechanical tick of the metronome, he made the metronomeswing. It didn’t seem to swing. It did swing. Oscar Peterson pointsout that when you shift the beat on top of the time, you induce aphysical reaction on the audience: they begin popping theirthumbs or tapping their feet. He cannot of course explain thecomplex neuraI-glandular-muscular-emotional response that".produces the tapping. Neither can anybody else.

I asked Oscar, “But what happens in a trio, say, if all three ofyou go on top of the time? I-Iaven’t you merely shifted the center ofthe beat and therefore none of you is on top of the time?”

“No,” Oscar said. “You’re still on top of the time."This brings us to the edge of the mystical—the displacement of

time itself——and to a conception of rhythm that Bill Evans had.Bill drew an analogy to shadow lettering, that form of print thatcreates a three-dimensional illusion of raised letters by showingthe shadows cast by them but not the letters themselves. Billthought in terms of shadow rhythms, and he played that way.

Bill was committed to the unthinking spontaneity of jazz. Whencritics occasionally called him the most intellectual of players, Billin private took issue with them. “Man, you can’: think at thosetempoes,” he said to me once. I asked him if, presuming we couldgo in a time machine to see Chopin improvising, he would call thatjazz. “Yes,” he said without hesitation and added: “If I heard anEskimo improvising within his own tonal system, assuming thereis one, I would call that jazz.” ,

Larry Bunker told me that during the several months he spenton the road with Bill—he gave up lucrative studio work for theinspiration of working with him—he Ieamed that it was futile tostart playing a drum pattern that fit into what Bill was wont toplay in the head or the out chorus ofa tune. The moment you triedto match Bill, Larry said, he would shift away from you,demanding total spontaneity of performance. ___¢_Ml wrote the liner notes for the All Blue album he made with

. s Davis. “There is,” Bill wrote, “a Japanese visual art in whichthe artist is forced to spontaneousness. He must paint on a thinstretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint insuch a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy theline or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes areimpossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, thatof allowing the idea to express itself in communication with theirhands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.

“The resulting pictures lack the complex composition andtextures of ordinary painting, but it is said that those who see wellfind something captured that escapes explanation. Thisconviction, that direct deed is the most meaningful reflection, Ibelieve, has prompted the evolution of the extremely severe andunique disciplines of the jazz or improvising musician.“

It is nonsense that no white man has ever contributed to theevolution ofjazz, a position often taken by white leftist jazz criticswho cannot keep their politics separated from their esthetics andwho practice the aforementioned blinkered exclusion ofinformation that challenges their complex of verbal ideas. It is aconviction that is achieved by overlooking the influence of FrankQibauer (who, it should be noted, was part Indian) and Bud

eman on Lester Young, and that of Jack Teagarden (who wasnot, as is widely supposed, part Indian but all German) on thedevelopment of modern trombone. It is achieved by overlookingBill Evans. It is achieved by overlooking Bix. An English criticsaid that Bix made history but did not influence it. Really?Because of his spaced, spare, selective choice of notes, I onceasked Miles Davis if he had listened to a lot of Bix. “No,” Milessaid, “but I listened a lot to Bobby Hackett and he listened a lot toBix.” Because of the influence Miles has had on other musicians,the influence of Bix on jazz must be considered pervasive.

But there can be no question that most of the input andinspiration ofjazz has come from black musicians. And the reasonfor this is not, as has been so often supposed, merely one of theirearly exposure to a highly rhythmic music. The reason is thatstated by the kidnapped president in that movie.

A black child wishing to play jazz has a psychologicaladvantage over a white child with the same ambition, because hecornes from a culture that places a value on spontaneity. He ispsychologically more attuned to a music that requires thatquality—although we all know black people whose upbringinhas not inculcated them with this ideal. I have known at least twblack opera singers who have utterly square time.

It follows that those white cultures which, though to a lesserextent than the black culture, value spontaneity, are likely toproduce more jazz musicians that those that extol control and

5

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e

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is it an accident that so many of Britain's finest actors are alsoCelts, such as Alec Guiness, a Scot, Richard Burton, a Welshman,and Richard Harris, who is Irish. And look at how manyplaywrights (Sheridan, Wilde, Shaw, Synge) and poets andnovelists the Irish and the Scots have given to the Englishlanguage.

Actress Elizabeth Ashely, recalling the seemingly meaninglessActors Studio exercises she had endured (pretending you’re a treeor an armchair or a dog), Said she had finally figured out theirvalue: nothing you would ever be called upon to do on a stagecould be as embarrassing as those exercises. In other words, theyget you beyond inhibition, free of the fear of making a fool ofyourself, free to be spontaneous.

The Anglo-Saxon musician who takes up jazz is likely to gothrough certain psychological pains to achieve his freedom.Sometimes, I suspect, the very fact of the price he has paid maymake him into one of the wilder and more impetuous players. PhilWoods and Roger Kellaway are Anglo-Saxons from NewEngland.

In earlier periods of European musical history, the creator of themusic was himself a performer. As what we now call classicalmusic evolved, this began to change. The first “classical”composers were very much involved in performance, and mostwere virtuosi and skilled improvisers. This continued through theEighteenth and well into the Nineteenth Centuries. Beethovengave up his beloved improvising only when he became too deaf tohear himself. Chopin had a prodigious musical memory and hisimpromptus are apparently transcriptions of pieces he had earlierimprovised. Perhaps if the recording process had been invented,he would have written far less than he did.

But a bifurcation grew gradually wider during the NineteenthCentury. The composer became king, the players merely vassals tohis will. Thus the composer was separated from the performingand the performer from the creating of the music. An inevitabledessication began to set in. Music moved toward being an exercisein logic and form, more “written,” more “literate,” if you will. Inthe Twentieth Century, this trend progressed toward disaster, andamong those who considered themselves cognoscenti of classicalmusic there is a certain condescension toward those composerswhose music is accessible and overtly emotional, and a relegationof their work to a lower rank Grieg, Tchaikovsky,Rachmaninoff. I went through a period when I managed toconvince myself I did not like Grieg, who wrote lovely though notmonumental music. I mentioned this once to Bill Evans. “I wentthrough that phase too," he said. I said, “I know what happened tome, but what happened to you?” “The intellectuals got to me."“Same here.”

It is significant, I think, that Rachmaninoff, whose music isintensely emotional and communicative, was one of the greatvirtuosi of the piano, and an improviser. One evening when Billand I were sharing an apartment, he played me severalRachmaninoff preludes—at sight, I’d like you to know, and attempo, beautifully. I think that was the occasion when he said tome, “Any music that is not in some way in touch with the processof improvisation is likely to be sterile.”

“But what,” I said‘, “of a composer sitting at a manuscript paperand not touching the piano?”

“He may be improvising,” Bill said.And he may not. He may be working at the creation of a logical

exercise according to some stringent set of niles, such as theserialism descending from the work of Schoenberg or themathematical system taught by Schillinger. It is significant thatboth names are Germang That Schoenberg was also Jewish isirrevelant. He was a deeply German composer.

The question of whether a people invents a language expressingtheir national character or whether the structure of their languageinfluences the evolution of the general personality isunanswerable. But a correlation between character and language

will always be found. Descartes could only have been French.German is probably the most rigidly logical of all Westernlanguages, perhaps of all languages. The German people are liketheir language. And if the black culture puts a high value onspontaneity and the impulsive, the German culture places thehighest value on ordnung, order. It is inevitable then that Germancomposers would strive to develop orderly systems for makingmusic, systems that eliminate as much as possible the variationand fallibility of human judgment, systems that free the composerof responsibility for his own acts, systems that would, after thework was completed, provide irrefutable justification for the wayit was made and eliminate in turn the variability of the listener’sresponse to it.

And though Debussy took ardent issue with the Germandominance of classical music, its influence is still there. ThusTwentieth Century classical music still is preoccupied withsystems and logic for which the composer can be proclaimedbrilliant rather than with emotion, and it has wandered fartherand farther from what the Greeks thought was the purpose oftragedy (and in my opinion is the purpose of all art), namelycatharsis, the freeing of the emotions by the pity and terrorinduced by events in the lives of the characters.

It is axiomatic in all schools of psychology that repr demotions fester, giving rise to any number of problems fromneurosis to ulcers to hysterical conversion to total mental collapseto murder. No one since Freud has seriously questioned this,except screwball right-wing Christian fundamentalists. Andnothing has the capacity to release emotion like art, and no art likemusic, and no music like jazz. I

Jazz, through its rhythms and its difficult-to-define swing, setsup a hypnotic receptivity. Hypnosis is a process by which theconscious rationalistic judgment is suspended, allowing thehypnotist directly to address the subconscious, which lacks thecritical faculty and accepts whatever suggestion is made to it. Jazz,to a greater or lesser degree, dependent on the listener’s ability orwillingness to submit to it, gets beyond the process of consciousjudgment, of verbalizing, of observing-yourself-in-the-act-of-listening and thinking about your responses, which very act canmake those responses evaporate. It opens as it were the doorwayto the soul and gives the music direct access to the inner person.One is able to know, when one is attuned to jazz (whether playingit or listening to it), a truly spontaneous and unpremeditatedemotional experience. This is exhilarating. Q

Jazz is black music not because only black musicians can m eit or even because black musicians invented it—as a matter of fact,we now seem to be producing jazz musicians of brilliance all overthe world—but because to be jazz the music must be made in ablack way, which is to say in accordance with a tradition ofspontanteity that is linked to an oral and sometimes even sub-verbal culture.

Africa restored to Western art something it was in danger oflosing, spontaneity, both in the creation ofand response to music.It is possible that the constant exposure to this music over a periodof years provides a qualitative change in personality, for certainlyjau listeners on the whole seem to be a warmer, more emotional,more open, more liberal, more tolerant kind of people, thoughthis is by no means universal.

William Blake spoke of “the marriage of Heaven and Hell”,reason and the emotions, that would lead us to the NewJerusalem. I know of no art that embodies and illustrates thatmarriage the way jazz does. This is why wefeel that there is moreto this music than meets the ear, something that, as Bill Evans putit, escapes explanation. Everyone who loves jazz is aware thatthere is something in it that is somehow comforting, somehowhealing.

I suspect that this is because every once in a while, if only for afew bars or a chorus or two or, when the groove is good, as muchas an hour, it takes us home to our lost garden, the eternal andresonant now.

is it an accident that so many of Britain's finest actors are alsoCelts, such as Alec Guiness, a Scot, Richard Burton, a Welshman,and Richard Harris, who is Irish. And look at how manyplaywrights (Sheridan, Wilde, Shaw, Synge) and poets andnovelists the Irish and the Scots have given to the Englishlanguage.

Actress Elizabeth Ashely, recalling the seemingly meaninglessActors Studio exercises she had endured (pretending you’re a treeor an armchair or a dog), Said she had finally figured out theirvalue: nothing you would ever be called upon to do on a stagecould be as embarrassing as those exercises. In other words, theyget you beyond inhibition, free of the fear of making a fool ofyourself, free to be spontaneous.

The Anglo-Saxon musician who takes up jazz is likely to gothrough certain psychological pains to achieve his freedom.Sometimes, I suspect, the very fact of the price he has paid maymake him into one of the wilder and more impetuous players. PhilWoods and Roger Kellaway are Anglo-Saxons from NewEngland.

In earlier periods of European musical history, the creator of themusic was himself a performer. As what we now call classicalmusic evolved, this began to change. The first “classical”composers were very much involved in performance, and mostwere virtuosi and skilled improvisers. This continued through theEighteenth and well into the Nineteenth Centuries. Beethovengave up his beloved improvising only when he became too deaf tohear himself. Chopin had a prodigious musical memory and hisimpromptus are apparently transcriptions of pieces he had earlierimprovised. Perhaps if the recording process had been invented,he would have written far less than he did.

But a bifurcation grew gradually wider during the NineteenthCentury. The composer became king, the players merely vassals tohis will. Thus the composer was separated from the performingand the performer from the creating of the music. An inevitabledessication began to set in. Music moved toward being an exercisein logic and form, more “written,” more “literate,” if you will. Inthe Twentieth Century, this trend progressed toward disaster, andamong those who considered themselves cognoscenti of classicalmusic there is a certain condescension toward those composerswhose music is accessible and overtly emotional, and a relegationof their work to a lower rank Grieg, Tchaikovsky,Rachmaninoff. I went through a period when I managed toconvince myself I did not like Grieg, who wrote lovely though notmonumental music. I mentioned this once to Bill Evans. “I wentthrough that phase too,” he said. I said, “I know what happened tome, but what happened to you?" “The intellectuals got to me."“Same here.”

It is significant, I think, that Rachmaninoff, whose music isintensely emotional and communicative, was one of the greatvirtuosi of the piano, and an improviser. One evening when Billand I were sharing an apartment, he played me severalRachmaninoff preludes—at sight, I’d like you to know, and attempo, beautifully. I think that was the occasion when he said tome, “Any music that is not in some way in touch with the processof improvisation is likely to be sterile.”

“But what,” I said‘, “of a composer sitting at a manuscript paperand not touching the piano?”

“He may be improvising,” Bill said.And he may not. He may be working at the creation of a logical

exercise according to some stringent set of niles, such as theserialism descending from the work of Schoenberg or themathematical system taught by Schillinger. It is significant thatboth names are Germang That Schoenberg was also Jewish isirrevelant. He was a deeply German composer.

The question of whether a people invents a language expressingtheir national character or whether the structure of their languageinfluences the evolution of the general personality isunanswerable. But a correlation between character and language

will always be found. Descartes could only have been French.German is probably the most rigidly logical of all Westernlanguages, perhaps of all languages. The German people are liketheir language. And if the black culture puts a high value onspontaneity and the impulsive, the German culture places thehighest value on ordnung, order. It is inevitable then that Germancomposers would strive to develop orderly systems for makingmusic, systems that eliminate as much as possible the variationand fallibility of human judgment, systems that free the composerof responsibility for his own acts, systems that would, after thework was completed, provide irrefutable justification for the wayit was made and eliminate in turn the variability of the listener’sresponse to it.

And though Debussy took ardent issue with the Germandominance of classical music, its influence is still there. ThusTwentieth Century classical music still is preoccupied withsystems and logic for which the composer can be proclaimedbrilliant rather than with emotion, and it has wandered fartherand farther from what the Greeks thought was the purpose oftragedy (and in my opinion is the purpose of all art), namelycatharsis, the freeing of the emotions by the pity and terrorinduced by events in the lives of the characters.

It is axiomatic in all schools of psychology that repr demotions fester, giving rise to any number of problems fromneurosis to ulcers to hysterical conversion to total mental collapseto murder. No one since Freud has seriously questioned this,except screwball right-wing Christian fundamentalists. Andnothing has the capacity to release emotion like art, and no art likemusic, and no music like jazz. I

Jazz, through its rhythms and its difficult-to-define swing, setsup a hypnotic receptivity. Hypnosis is a process by which theconscious rationalistic judgment is suspended, allowing thehypnotist directly to address the subconscious, which lacks thecritical faculty and accepts whatever suggestion is made to it. Jazz,to a greater or lesser degree, dependent on the listener’s ability orwillingness to submit to it, gets beyond the process of consciousjudgment, of verbalizing, of observing-yourself-in-the-act-of-listening and thinking about your responses, which very act canmake those responses evaporate. It opens as it were the doorwayto the soul and gives the music direct access to the inner person.One is able to know, when one is attuned to jazz (whether playingit or listening to it), a truly spontaneous and unpremeditatedemotional experience. This is exhilarating. Q

Jazz is black music not because only black musicians can m eit or even because black musicians invented it—as a matter of fact,we now seem to be producing jazz musicians of brilliance all overthe world—but because to be jazz the music must be made in ablack way, which is to say in accordance with a tradition ofspontanteity that is linked to an oral and sometimes even sub-verbal culture.

Africa restored to Western art something it was in danger oflosing, spontaneity, both in the creation ofand response to music.It is possible that the constant exposure to this music over a periodof years provides a qualitative change in personality, for certainlyjau listeners on the whole seem to be a warmer, more emotional,more open, more liberal, more tolerant kind of people, thoughthis is by no means universal.

William Blake spoke of “the marriage of Heaven and Hell”,reason and the emotions, that would lead us to the NewJerusalem. I know of no art that embodies and illustrates thatmarriage the way jazz does. This is why wefeel that there is moreto this music than meets the ear, something that, as Bill Evans putit, escapes explanation. Everyone who loves jazz is aware thatthere is something in it that is somehow comforting, somehowhealing.

I suspect that this is because every once in a while, if only for afew bars or a chorus or two or, when the groove is good, as muchas an hour, it takes us home to our lost garden, the eternal andresonant now.